


Two Cups of Coffee

by yoncepadthai



Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: F/M, slightly slowburn i suppose?, yesss another fic with susanna but this time its centered more around karen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-29
Updated: 2016-04-29
Packaged: 2018-06-05 04:32:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,676
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6689269
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yoncepadthai/pseuds/yoncepadthai
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Months since the last time she and Frank drank coffee together, Karen debates returning to the diner.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Two Cups of Coffee

Karen Page stared at the time on her phone and ran her finger, back and forth, over her bottom lip. She sighed, tugged her hair around her ears, and then proceeded to bite at her nail. All the usual ticks she employed when trying to distract herself.

Karen knew it was stupid. But she was so angry. Angry at her lack of answers.

Pushing those same strands of hair behind her ears, one final time, she shot up from the couch and in one fluid motion had grabbed her purse, locked her door, and slammed it shut - albeit too loudly for this time of night.

Her thoughts followed her as she made her way down to the garage. Each step she took drummed out a steady beat for the conversation in her mind.

_Stupid_. Step.

_Goddamnit_. Step.

_This is bullshit_. Step.

_Don't do this again._  Step.

_You are being ridiculous_. Step.

_Yeah, I’m going do it this time_. Step.

_Nope, you should go back upstairs_. Step.

She liked to play games when she was younger. There was a solid year in elementary when every recess was spent peeling petals off flowers to decide her and her friends fate. _He loves you not_ , peel, _he loves you_ , peel, _he loves you not,_ peel.

The formula had changed slightly over the years but the premise was the same. Whatever thought she had when she landed on the last step was the one that decided her course of action.

Tonight's thought, as luck would have it, had ended on going back upstairs.

Karen paused in preparation and she readied herself to turn around.

“Oh, get a grip, I’m not a child”, she muttered under her breath as she strode off in the direction of her car.

Within fifteen minutes, she had arrived, parked, and was walking through the doors of an all night diner.

Susanna looked up from her counter and watched with wise eyes as Karen swung open the door and made a bee-line to her usual booth.

The first time Karen had come back to this old haunt, Susanna had walked over, gently laid a hand on Karen's shoulder and simply asked, “What will it be, hon?”

Without thinking, she had replied, “Coffee, black. Please.”

That first visit had been five weeks after she was kidnapped by ninjas and witnessed Frank Castle standing on a rooftop like some strange gargoyle guardian peering down at her. Somehow offering her protection. Only menacing, grotesque, and dangerous to the evils of the world. 

It was usual for Susanna to walk over to Karen holding a empty cup in one hand and a pot of coffee in the other. So, when Susanna puts a second cup across from her, Karen furrows her brow and looks up in confusion, “Are you joining me?”

Occasionally Karen enjoyed exchanging small conversation with her, but more often then not, she felt peace in the older woman’s silence. No questions or judgement, just a warm reassurance in her eyes. Susanna had a sixth sense about her, and knew when a person desired the company of their own thoughts. She also seemed to understand why Karen would arrive to this diner, always on the same day and always at the same time. Some months Karen would come every week; other months she wouldn't show up at all.

“No,” the waitress replied over her shoulder as she walked away with a casual shrug, “just in case you have company”.

_Wait, did that mean..._ Was she suddenly sweating or was that merely the approach of summer heat? Karen anxiously turned to glance around her and stood up to peer out at the street.

_False alarm_ , she realized and sat back down. No one else was around.

Karen did not want to contact Frank, after all he was dead to her. If anyone should reach out, it should be him with an apology. But then, at the same time, she found herself back at this diner, perhaps the one place she and Frank could meet 'accidentally'. She couldn’t even fully explain to herself why she created a strange anniversary of their evening in this diner.

She always understood Frank.

He was a mirror into her own psyche, offering a reflection that often she was afraid to peer into. Where did Karen Page end and Frank Castle begin. If she was Frank, would she behave any differently? If Frank was her, would he have done the same things as she? It wasn't just his philosophy, Karen even excused his anguish and bloody search for answers. Flashing back to December, Karen can still feel the rage building inside her chest. The taste of venom on her tongue as she struggled to control herself, as Ellison provoked her, calling Frank “a psycho murderer”.

What she couldn’t understand was Frank hiding the truth. Killing the Blacksmith before all the answers and pieces had been revealed.

She couldn’t understand how Frank had chosen death. She had been so certain in those conversations they had in jail - Frank could heal over his lost. He could move on with his life. He could be more than ‘the Punisher’. _Ugh_. The sound of that name once evoked a different feeling, these days, it just made her eyes roll. Frank wasn't a myth. Frank was a man. _Was_.

He didn’t even try. He just pushed her away and did what came easy.

Or maybe she’s wrong.

Maybe he didn’t push her away, maybe he simply didn’t care about her threat. Didn't care if she no longer was a part of his life. The image she had of Frank as this half monster/half hero, the same image she had of herself, maybe it wasn't real. Maybe Karen really had projected herself onto Frank. Projected her own desires for the truth and friendship onto a mass murderer with a bullet hole in his skull. 

And yet, Frank had always made her smile. Every time they were alone he hadn't he -–

Like clockwork, Susanna reappeared with the check.

Karen never liked to stay at the diner for more than hour. During her first visits Karen would watch the clock and the street outside like a hawk. Over time her fervor had lessened, nowadays, Frank Castle could be standing right outside her window and Karen wouldn’t have notice. Did these visits do more harm then good? Each visit to the diner Karen found herself more lost in her own thoughts, more confused, filled with more self doubt.

Karen was grateful for the unspoken routine Susanna offered. The waitress’s presence was a familiar tether that brought Karen back to reality.

“Thanks.” Karen said, shaking the last few thoughts about Frank from her mind.

“Be seeing you?” asked Susanna.

Karen let out a small smile, and tilted her head. She set her cash down, leaned across to the other side of the table, and let her fingertips run across the handle of opposite cup as she drew out a long, “We’ll see...” 

As Karen makes her exit with a tiny goodbye nod, Susanna tucks the cash and bill into her apron, watching the blonde woman get into her car, by the time Susanna is back behind her counter, the woman is slowly driving off into the night.

Susanna waits. She never has to wait long.

It’s a few minutes later when someone opens the door, a small wave of early-summer heat blowing in, and a man wearing a baseball cap enters the diner.

He walks to his usual booth and turns to sit in his usual seat - directly across from one half empty cup of coffee.

His own cup being set on the table before his arrival seems to go unnoticed.

Without a single word spoken from either one of them, Susanna moves towards the man and fills his cup with the same pot of black coffee. Frank’s dark brown eyes meet hers for a moment, somehow melting ever-so-slightly in acknowledgement, before turning his attention away to the adjacent coffee cup and his own muddled thoughts.

One night Karen had arrived looking more dolled up than usual – Susanna figured she must have attended some event – and left traces of cherry red lipstick on her coffee cup. In a moment of something Susanna couldn't quite place, _was it a kindly gesture or was it pure curiosity_ , she decided to leave the cup on the table.

When Frank arrived and noticed the cup with smeared lipstick, Susanna had a front row seat. That man's face literally cycle through every known emotion and all in the timespan of thirty minutes. After his fourth refill, his usual limit, the man's hand hovered over the other cup for what seemed like a lifetime to Susanna. Finally, with more care than one would imagine for a man who looks like Frank, he gingerly picked it up and took it with him.

He made it all the way to the last booth before setting it back down on the counter.

Neither Karen or Frank returned to the diner for six weeks after that night. Some nights only one of them would show. Most nights they both did.

There hadn't been any more lipstick but Susanna still stuck to the habit of not removing cups until after Frank left. This week she had decided to start putting both cups down when Karen arrived.

Some nights Susanna wondered about in her place in this couple’s story.

Despite small gestures she made, she felt bound to secrecy.

Karen has never noticed Frank awkwardly standing in the shadows during her visits or the few times she sat the window and he walked past.

Frank has never had the courage to enter the diner when Karen is still there.

One day, Susanna knows, one day they're be ready. Those two will meet at that booth again. They’ll argue, they’ll talk, they’ll laugh, they will be alright in the end.

One day they will find their way back to each other.

And if two cups of coffee happen to help that process along, then so be it.

 

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for all the encouragement on my last fic – it was greatly appreciated! i wanted to play more with the idea of susanna being an out-of-sight cupid, not directly involved in getting kastle together but still present for it and this also is my attempt to write something more positive. :p
> 
> btw, am i the only person who gets really paranoid about writing something incorrect? like, i had to rewatch the diner scene again and again to make sure the cups aren't pre-placed on all the booths.
> 
> ps, i'm loving this idea of frank as a gargoyle. does anyone else remember that show? i feel like the world needs a crack!fic au in which foggy and karen are humans that protect the stone gargoyles during the day and then at night frank, elektra, and matt come alive to fight crime. RIGHT?!


End file.
